HGGC Acquires Event Management Platform etouches

HGGC’s investment will help the fast-growing event management software and sourcing solutions provider significantly expand its business in order to achieve a greater share of the $6 billion Event Management Software (EMS) and venue sourcing market, according to HGGC officials.

“We are very excited to partner with HGGC as we continue to enhance our offering and capitalize on the large whitespace in the market” said Oni Chukwu, etouches CEO.

He continued, “The HGGC team’s experience in marketing technology gives them a very sophisticated understanding of the opportunity in front of us as enterprises transition from single-point solutions to a suite of solutions that manage the entire event lifecycle.”

By providing event management and venue sourcing solutions to a broad set of global customers in all major verticals, the end-to-end, cloud-based etouches platform addresses a wide range of event management and data needs and complexities, including hotel and venue sourcing, event marketing and content, registration and logistics, engagement and mobile, and data analytics and ROI solutions.

In the last 12 months alone, etouches has executed 46,000 events totaling 5.8 million registrations.

“Under Oni’s leadership, etouches has become a premier provider of EMS and venue sourcing solutions, more than doubling revenues since 2014,” said Steve Young, HGGC co-founder and managing director.

He added, “We’re confident that the additional resources we can bring to bear will accelerate etouches’ already impressive growth and outpace the competition. Because we see etouches as a growth investment just starting to reach its potential, we’ve made this acquisition without leverage and are putting cash on the balance sheet to ensure nothing slows the company’s trajectory.”

With offices in the U.S., U.K., Belgium, Australia, Singapore and United Arab Emirates,

etouches has maintained a premium level of service and quality and has won multiple industry awards including Superior Customer Service, Best Event Management Technology, Best Event Management Software and Best Event Management Solutions since its launch nine years ago.

“Most people don’t realize that event management is an enormous business expense, accounting for up to 3 percent of total revenue and nearly a quarter of all B2B marketing budgets – approximately $14 billion,” said Farouk Hussein, principal at HGGC.

He continued, “Organizations are hungry for a broad solution set that can be used by multiple stakeholders to address all event management needs, as well as a centralized data source that is critical for event analytics. etouches provides that solution, which tracks real-time customer engagement, drives overall lower event costs and increases ROI and productivity.”

As the final platform investment made from HGGC’s $1.33 billion second fund, etouches follows AutoAlert, Dealer FX, Integrity, MyWebGrocer, Selligent and SSI as the seventh marketing services technology platform invested in by the private equity firm.